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Related Discussions
Speed on Logic Games
sum-g-00
Alum Member
Hi guys, looking for some advice on LGs. I have been working on them for a few weeks now (ok, like two, lol), and haven't seen much improvement on time. I can answer most/all of the questions successfully (maybe -1 or -2 on a bad day) but my speed isn't improving (or at least not much). I diagram on time I think (a minute or two-ish), but I think what's bogging me down is the time it takes to try out must/can be true q's or must/can be false q's, as well as sometimes making new, more difficult inferences for questions with new if's. Idk if it is just that though, because I am taking more time answering every question than I should be. I've just been drilling problem sets, but not sure if there is a better method I should be looking into. Any advice would be super helpful! Thanks.
Comments
Are you getting -1/-2 in 35 min (very good!) and looking to get faster for a safety margin or are you getting -1/-2 taking as much time as you need. If it's the second it would be helpful to know how much time you are taking to answer all questions successfully, but really the biggest thing would be to start applying time pressure to yourself to force yourself to go faster. If it's the first one I'm in a similar position so I can't help much I'm afraid other than practice practice practice haha.
I'm getting -1/-2 given as much time as I need- I roughly take 10 mins too long
. If I put pressure on myself to be faster, I never finish the last game, and occasionally miss one or two extra questions, which sucks. I've heard competing suggestions (don't time-just practice to perfection; always time; do individual games to time; do full-length sections) so I am just trying to figure out strategically what the best thing to spend my time on would be.
One thing that’s going to be really important is to change your understanding of how to manage time. You’re framing it in terms of speed, but it really isn’t about how fast you do the work. Instead, it’s about how effective the work you do is. For example, if you work a game and it takes you 15 minutes when it should’ve taken you 9: Your response won’t normally be to squeeze that 15 minutes worth of work into 9 minutes. Instead, you want to try to find different work that will be more effective and thus, less time consuming.
So maybe you do the game again and this time choose to split the game board. Sometimes that can fundamentally alter the development of the game in really dramatic ways. I’ve gone from -4 in 15 minutes on a game to -0 in 6 minutes because I found a more effective way to represent the rules through splitting the game board. It can be that powerful. And that isn’t the only tool for this kind of assessment, but the point is that studying games isn’t about squeezing the work into the timeframe. It’s about finding the work that’s going to fit.
All that said, I think it’s too early to get discouraged only two weeks in. Honestly, the real reason your time isn’t improving is just that you suck at logic games. I sucked at LG two weeks in; everybody sucks two weeks in. And that’s okay. Right now you’re just trying to get comfortable with your tools. You’re still learning and making mistakes. You’re still going to be dealing with inaccuracies, pursuing dead ends, missing obvious inferences, and setting things up generally poorly. What matters most right now is that you eventually get there and that, when you do, you understand what the best setup is and why it’s better than the others. Timing on LG is more a matter of experience, and you just don’t have that yet. But you’ll get it. You’ll see the right moves faster and more intuitively with time and things will start improving.
Right now, it sounds to me like you’re on track. Keep at it.
Thanks heaps! I was worrying a bit, since I am planning on taking the June LSAT and feel far behind from where I want to be to make my goal score. However, just did a full LG problem set with around 10 mins to spare and no incorrects, so I think improvement's happening, even if I can't always see it
Oh my Holy Jesus... if you're two weeks in and nearly acing them with 10 extra minutes, please trust me, you will be fine. The inferences will come easier as you start to subconsciously recognize the patterns. It honestly took me 3-4 months to get where you are, and I now get between -0 and -2 on timed PrepTest LG sections. I think once you get to where you currently are, the best way to practice LG is as follows. If you:
a) Figured out the inferences, finished in time, and got 100% (or made a mistake that was obviously silly on one or two questions), you're done. Move on. Pat yourself on the back. Fuck yeah.
b) Did well in terms of accuracy but took too long: Watch JY's video and see if you missed any inferences. Usually, if a game takes too long, it's because you missed inferences up front or got hung up on one or two tricky questions. If you missed inferences, make a note on the game, then come back to it on a later day, make all the inferences from memory, make some hypothetical gameboards or something to see how the inferences really impact the remaining possible worlds, then approach the questions once you feel you REALLY understand how the game works. I took this advice to heart and it helped me so much.
c) Straight up did not understand the game after taking a substantial amount of time on the rules and doing trial and error on the questions: watch JY's video and follow along carefully as he builds his gameboard and approaches the questions. He usually finds ways to address the hardest games that seem obvious in hindsight and, more importantly, will apply to similar challenging games you will face in the future. Once you've done this and feel more confident, make a note on it, come back to it later, make the inferences from memory, and take another run at the questions.
I wish you the best of luck -- you're in a great place right now! Keep practicing each of the three sections evenly, taking practice tests under real conditions, and you are going to crush it. Cheering for you.
It looks like you've already gotten some great advice, and apologies if I reiterate anything that's already been said, but I think a key thing to look at is where you're going wrong. Are you missing key inferences? Or are you working slowly because you're brand new at this and the connections will take time to develop? Or both?
If you're missing inferences, make notes on that based on J.Y.'s explanations. If you're just working slowly, I think the only remedy is to keep practicing! I'm no LG expert but I used to be really bad and only reliably got through two of the games. Now, I usually at least get through three by reviewing missed inferences and just practicing.
LG have always kept me in the low 160's but I'm finally in the 170's range after the 7sage videos. I use to think it was because I was slow with questions like MBT so I ran out of time a lot. But I think the biggest factor in that was that I did very few effective inferences right off the bat. Taking more time relating each rule to the previous one and theorizing thoroughly really cut down time on my actual questions. Feeling like I really understood what the game was doing and how it behaved. That's just me though for what it's worth.
Thank you so much for this advice! I'll def watch more of the vids- I wasn't initially bc I realized I was just memorizing the inferences and writing them down from memory
. I'll space out my initial and follow-ups more so I have time to forget lol! Thank you for your vote of confidence- three weeks(ish) in and too anxious, so really appreciated!
Honestly now that I am thinking about it, I sometimes find it difficult to figure out how inferences may interact on the gameboard/ with the entities, which is probably what's taking me so long. It might additionally be that I am missing a few key inferences, and that when I do make some of the bigger ones, I second guess whether or not they are correct- but I think I am improving on this part. Thanks for your advice!
Don't worry, 2 weeks into LG is still getting your feet wet! When I started the LG section, I had this moment of deep panic and anxiety because I felt myself hitting a wall I didn't think I could overcome. Do NOT be me. You CAN and WILL improve levels beyond where you're currently at! My advice is to keep at it, every single day. And take J.Y.'s advice and repeat the games. He suggests repeating each game 10 times, which in my opinion isn't realistic when you have other things taking up your time. Do each game 3 times, no question. And don't repeat a game 3 times in one sitting--instead, come back to it a day or two after your first attempt, and try again. That way, you're training your brain to actually BUILD the skills of making inferences, splitting game boards, seeing patterns, etc. instead of just pulling it from short term memory.
Also, when you watch his explanation videos, try pausing it right after he finishes setting up the board and diagramming the rules. Copy what he has on your paper, and then try to do the questions yourself. Learning from his setup will give you a great start, and then you can practice moving through the questions KNOWING you already have all the info you need to solve them (inferences, game board, etc.) After you attempt each question, go back and hit play and watch how he does it. This is a great way to actively teach yourself how to do the games. You'll learn much more than if you just sit and watch him do it!
Last thing--you'll find that speed on LG comes from the grunt work you do at the beginning. DO NOT RUSH/SKIP THE SETUP. I've done a handful of games that took me 15+ mins or completely stumped me, all because in my haste to get to the questions, I didn't take the time to understand how the rules fit into one another, which made me miss key inferences. Honestly, sometimes the inference is so significant that it will literally boil down the entire game to just a couple of possibilities, allowing you to breeze through the questions in just a few minutes.
Reviewing the games thoroughly + actively learning from them is the best way to improve your accuracy and speed. It's great to drill games, but you'd be a fool to expect improvement from increasing the sheer QUANTITY of your games rather than improving what you get from reviewing each game individually. Make sure that's where your focus is.
Best of luck with LG's, you're gonna do amazing! You got this :')
So there is a lot of advice here, I'm only adding what has made the difference for me. I had -1/-0 in pretty much all of my LG practice and on test day. They became my favorite section.
Things to know that will save you time:
1.) Nearly every game and every question can be answered by JUST following inferences from the applications of rules. Don't immediately just jump into diagramming after reading the prompt and the rules. In fact, I MAYBE only needed to diagram one or two games for specific questions to double check that my answer selection was correct. Organize in your head what TYPE of game (sequence/in-or-out/complex chart etc). Once you have that info down, read the question stems as they often will literally tell you what to look for.
-I break this down in two ways:
FIRST WAY:
I call them"If placements"....where they tell you upfront which entity is placed and where, or whether it is in or out and its your job to just follow the set of triggers that occur. Once you do this, IMMEDIATELY just run through your rules and start seeing what triggers what. i.e. "Oh! I can't put P here because X is here, therefore P must go elsewhere....Next Rule: Oh, because P can't go there, therefore the only entities that could go in these spaces are A, G, N." The point is that the rules are 85% of success on LG. The remainder is made up but the SECOND WAY I break LG questions down: Could Be True/False vs Must Be True/False.
SECOND WAY:
Could Be True/False questions are ONLY ONLY ONLY asking for an entity that is flexible, meaning it can move around and is either not bound to one spot or is freed to move around because the placement of other entities+conditional logic (If X--> then Y / (not)~Y--> (not)~X) dictates that an entity now has the flexibility to be placed elsewhere. So! When I'm answering CBT/CBF questions in LG, I literally run through the rules and tell myself that if one of the answer choices is bound to one spot after I apply the rules, it absolutely cannot be the right answer. Often 4/5 wrong answers will be an entity that is bound to one spot OR one that you know to be blatantly false because of the application of the rules!
Must Be True/Must Be False questions are explicitly asking for the OPPOSITE of Could Be Trues/Could Be False questions. They specifically ONLY want an answer choice that is bound to one spot/in or out. So I mentally told myself, "If an answer choice is flexible, its not my answer." Running the rules, once again, will answer most of these questions in virtually seconds. The moment an answer choice given can be placed in two different spots whether in the same scenario or two different scenarios (game board), it is absolutely must be treated as the wrong answer. The right answer will be an entity that can only be placed in one spot no matter how many game boards/scenarios available, OR an entity that the rules force into ONE possible spot.
My advice for anyone who reads this is just zero in on the rules, the test makers gave them to you for a reason, and I can promise you your LSAT world will flip upside down if you just apply the rules one by one and see what inferences occur. The questions are essentially giving you a new rule to apply or giving you a trigger that will affect HOW the rules are applied. That's the secret. Hope this helps, good luck.
Also for reference, I went from a 148-->169 over 1.5 years of bettering my understanding on each section.
You're in pretty good shape if those are the results you're getting on logic games only a few weeks in. I think more practice will get you where you want: taking timed sections, retaking those sections timed or untimed, and reviewing your results.
A trick that I have found helpful to get perfect scores on games with time to spare is to be bold and decisivie in your answer choice selection. If you diagrammed correctly, then have faith in your work and select the correct answer once you spot it. Do not spend a second more testing any of the other answer choices since they are wrong simply because of the fact that the answer you selected is right. This tactic should help speed games up to have time be less of a constraint.